Tag Archives: Orton Waterville

Royston Le Blond was born in 1887 in Norbiton, Kingston Upon Thames. In the 1901 census he is recorded as being a scholar at the Abbey School, Brackley Road, Beckenham, Kent. He was clearly very academically able and joined Westminster as a King’s Scholar in 1901. He left the school for Trinity College with the Triplett Scholarship in 1906.

Le Blond made the most of his time at school, taking part in Football, Cricket and Athletics as well as debating, taking part in the school’s Scientific Society and performing in the Latin Play. He became particularly exercised on the topic of speed limits, which was debated by the school society in 1906, and gave a speech with which many present day motorists would sympathise!:

‘Police-traps were a shameful abuse of justice ; they were often inaccurate and so unfair, and did no good to anyone except the policemen themselves, who were rewarded for every victim they caught—a temptation to neglect their proper duties for this lucrative method of business—and to the municipal councils, who reaped an excellent harvest from the fines’

He went on to add that he hoped:

‘the new Government would soon adopt the moderate and sensible system in vogue in France, where the speed limit was eighteen and a-half miles per hour and was strictly enforced in towns only’

Le Blond staring as Syrus in The Adelphi, 1905

It is perhaps unsurprising that given his love of argument he opted for law as a profession, and was admitted to Inner Temple in 1909. He joined the 12th Battalion of the Rifle Brigade as 2nd Lieutenant in September 1914 and by January 1915 had been promoted to temporary Captain. He died in Camp at Salisbury on 17th May following an operation. He was buried at the Brompton Cemetery, London and there is also a brass memorial plaque for him at the church of St Mary the Virgin, Orton Waterville, Peterborough. The inscription reads as follows: